Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Today we're helping people get better search results by extending Personalized Search to signed-out users worldwide
That's a staggering statement meaning that every computer accessing Google is now being personalized, signed in or not, so any desktop, laptop or kiosk will start tracking everything everyone does and you won't be able to access the same search results from any two machines.
The possible impact to all is staggering.
We get it, you love Googlaid they can't do anything wrong. It must be nice working for such a perfect company that makes no mistakes.
No, you don't get it. Instead of making an adolescent and inaccurate statement what you apparently regard as an insult, why not address the question that I posed? Again (and try to read slowly and carefully this time):
If Google is going to personalize all of its search results, what's the point of trying to check your rankings by viewing search results through a proxy? Whatever rankings you see won't be the rankings that John across the street and Jane next door are seeing. So why jump through hoops to get results that don't reflect reality?
If Google is going to personalize all of its search results, what's the point of trying to check your rankings by viewing search results through a proxy? Whatever rankings you see won't be the rankings that John across the street and Jane next door are seeing. So why jump through hoops to get results that don't reflect reality?
I got this one the first time, and have to agree, so let me see if I can say the same thing it seems you're saying another way:
If you're getting personalized search results you cannot see what someone else sees, because your results are personalized.
If you're not getting personalized results you cannot see what someone else because their results are personalized.
The only way to accurately check where your site shows up in the actual results other people see is to be served their results, so what's the point of bothering to try to get 'non-personalized' results, except conversation and futility, much like paying any attention to the little green idiot light on the tool bar... It's only a conversation piece and it appears the only real way to determine rankings any more is through traffic and keyword referrals.
If you want to know what you rank for check your stats...
[edited by: TheMadScientist at 5:46 am (utc) on Dec. 11, 2009]
Now it's a find and find again engine, so you're the only one who can possibly mess up your results. It's simple, easy and removes the blame from them. Over time they'll have it narrowed down to one right answer for you... You'll either get YouTube, GoogleMaps, GoogleEarth, GoogleAds, Twitter or WikiPedia (after they buy the last two).
If Google is going to personalize all of its search results, what's the point of trying to check your rankings by viewing search results through a proxy? Whatever rankings you see won't be the rankings that John across the street and Jane next door are seeing. So why jump through hoops to get results that don't reflect reality?
So, here I have a product (class of products) that visitors look for once or twice a year...
Gorg keeps feeding prospects the same junk (mine or others) for 180 days - or so they say. Maybe it makes sense to benchmark clean results?
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So, most users are going to see Wikipedia, Amazon, and eBay at the top of their search results...
In the UK there are direct marketing/direct mail firms who will help you to target junk mail (the old type in paper envelopes) based on the probability that the recipient will be interested in your product. They basically use correlations between neighbourhoods and household types and buying behaviour. Similar people live in similar neighbourhoods and buy similar things. My point is that the statistics, correlation theory and probability theory used in consumer targeting are all old hat Google are (probably) just applying those statistical principals to our individual user data categorising us as users who like results skewed towards a certain mix for one category of search or another mix for another category of search.
In order to keep their statistics fresh they have to allow this to develop over time. Personalisation would fail if they pigeon hole us and we are fixed in that position. They have to offer a mix so that we can continue to make choices otherwise the whole thing is doomed to fail. We (users) would all become bored with what Google gives us we would ruin Google for ourselves. They must therefore give users skewed natural results so that personalisation remains fresh.
Strongly linked to this is search type categorisation. If they have not analysed it yet then they will some time soon realise that some categories of search work best with more personalisation and some do not. In time certain categories of search will be more personalised than others. Things that you only search for on an annual basis may be categorised one way and be 99% natural other searches that fall into a different more regular category may be heavily personalised.
In short what can be done in statistical analysis of user data is far more complex than we are assuming and when this is mixed with statistical analysis of topic and search type you multiply the complexity.
Cheers
Sid
PS I'm sure that Tedster will shortly point us to the Google patents for using probability theory on user preference data.
ie will the Firefox de-personalized search add-ons work on our browsers?
maybe we could get the whole world to search through them instead? :)
FYI
[news.cnet.com...]
Cheers
Sid
[edited by: engine at 3:33 pm (utc) on Dec. 11, 2009]
[edit reason] added reference link [/edit]
A senior exec at Mozilla is saying Firefox users should use the Bing search extension.
Yeah, saw that as well. I really like his rational argumentation, especially considering that Google has been funding a good portion of the Firefox development.
The sequence is as follows:
- 3 PPC results
- 1 news result
- new magazine image results
- real-time section
- FINALLY THE FIRST ORGANIC RESULT (that do not show in the complete first fold)
Note: I am using firefox with only Google toolbar installed and viewing at 1280*1024 resolutions.
if google can see that you've searched golf sites in the past, then it can assume you mean those.
But what if you don't? That's why we need a button to switch it off. Right? Anybody who never searches for the same kind of book twice at Amazon knows that suggestions based on past searches are at best irrelevant and at worst an irritant.
The only way to accurately check where your site shows up in the actual results other people see is to be served their results, so what's the point of bothering to try to get 'non-personalized' results...
I hate to repeat myself, but here again is my post from 12/06. In case any of the Google Guys/Gals are paying attention, this still strikes me as one solution to the mess they've made for themselves:
They could make much of this anxiety go away simply by adding a new button, positioned in the mddle below their search field:[Google Search] [Show Me Something New] [I'm Feeling Lucky]
When a person clicked that, they'd get clean results, with no influence whatsoever from cookies or from search history. Very simple implementation that threads the needle between Old Google and New Google.
Google assumes baloney. There is an important keyword in my niche that is spelled differently than it is in the mainstream. That variant spelling has historical use going back to 1908. For a long time, Google was fine with the two different spellings and gave two different sets of results. That way you could not have to deal with the mostly not pertinent results from the ordinary way to spell the word. Like a lot of other people catering to this niche, I maximized my site for the non-ordinary way to spell the word, since I knew that the customers I wanted would be searching on that spelling. But at a certain point Google decided that it would return the same results for both--the results it gave for the mainstream spelling. I actually wrote to them about this (and I'm sure other people did too), and they changed it back to serving two separate results for a while, but now it's back to treating the variant spelling like a misspelling. If this is an example of Google knowing what we want based on our search history, well, it's ham-handed.
A senior exec at Mozilla is saying Firefox users should use the Bing search extension.
I'm not sure that a director of community development for an open-source browser producer has better insights into Google Personalized Search than anyone else does, and the fact that Google's own Chrome is now competing with Firefox might be coloring his thinking. If nothing else, this just goes to show that the software industry produces some strange bedfellows--in this case, an odd coupling between a Mozilla exec and Microsoft.
What strikes me about this thread is how much anger it's produced: not only in regard to the privacy issue (which is a far bigger issue than whatever role it may play in Google Personalized Search), but also in terms of search results. If personalized search results are as chaotic and useless as people here seem to think, shouldn't Googlephobes be grateful--even thrilled--that Google has taken a path that will drive more users to other search engines? Shouldn't the Bing for a Month [webmasterworld.com] advocates be lifting their pints or wineglasses in a collective salute to Google Personalized Search?
...why not address the question that I posed?
Because non-personalized results provide the baseline from which all personalization begins? Seriously SJ, I think non-personalized results are still more important than any personalized data. If you have a high ranking on a non-personalized SERP, my guess (no data yet to back this up) is that you have a better chance of a higher ranking on a personalized SERP.
FWIW, I think the Register article got it right. This is Google retreating from the spam problem and putting it back in the user's hands.
And so I lift my glass to thank Google for their Personalized Search, and especially to Mr. Schmidt for giving his opinion on privacy as clearly as possible (which is -admittedly- quite rare to hear from Google).
Cheers, Google!
The way I see it, the goal of any commercial search engine is to collect vast amounts of user data for reuse/resale. Google just happens to be better at this game than any of the others...
Wouldn't it be simpler just to use another search engine?
Google's search results were superior to the rest, and they were also known to most. Google's raping away the time we spent learning their serps - and for what? Worse serps. So ya, people are angry - why are you surprised by that?
Wouldn't it be simpler just to use another search engine?You're blaming the victim.
I'm not "blaming" anyone. I'm merely pointing out what should be obvious.
As for Google's "raping away the time we [sic] spent learning their serps" (an unfortunate phrase, by the way), hasn't Google stated more than once--in its Webmaster Guidelines, for example--that it would rather see people design sites for users, not for search engines? Instead of being angry, wouldn't it be more sense to be pragmatic and figure out what to do next?
ADDENDUM: Someone suggested earlier that, with search rankings becoming less relevant, traffic (or Google referrals) should be the new metric for gauging SEO success. And why not? It wasn't that long ago that people were bragging about their PageRank in the Google toolbar's "fuel gauge." Nowadays, that metric has mostly bitten the dust (except for spam link-exchange requests aimed at the clueless). Fundamental SEO principles won't go away just because rankings aren't consistent for every user, so wouldn't it make sense to continue what you've been doing, track the results by measuring Google referrals, and educate clients to build sites that visitors like?
What I don't like or want is when researching the range of different jets then having half of my queries for the rest of the day relate to airplanes no matter what I'm searching for.
What I don't undeststand is why are you being so defensive about it? Whose interest is that in? (honest question(s))
Seems to me alot of otherwise very creative and unique perspectives will be lost in this shift.
What I don't undeststand is why are you being so defensive about it? Whose interest is that in? (honest question(s))
Let's put the rhetoric away for a moment and consider the situation objectively:
1) To many people--and not just people at Google--personalized search makes sense as a concept, for reasons which have were pointed out earlier in this thread (the huge growth of the Web, an increasingly diverse audience, etc.).
2) Even if personalized search didn't make sense, it's a fait accompli, and the kind of name-calling and venting that we've seen in this thread won't make it go away.
3) If personalized search turns out to be a bust, Google will phase it out or users will move on to other search engines. If it turns out to be a success, it'll be around for a long time. In other words, the market will decide.
4) Like it or not, Google Search isn't run by us, and Google's managers, engineers, and programmers get to decide how Google Search results are served up to users.
I don't call those observations "defensive," I call them "realistic." People can vent as much as they want, but the reality is that angry words and name-calling won't make personalized search disappear.
Thus ( donc) ..
2) Even if personalized search didn't make sense, it's a fait accompli, and the kind of name-calling and venting that we've seen in this thread won't make it go away.
Requires ..nay..demands .. ..this response
it's a fait accompli
"It isn't a fait accompli ..nor a "done deal" because opt in tracking by default is against our law ..and that of all other European states" ..
then they said some other stuff which if I translated it would get past even the more recently relaxed bad word filters here ..and I had to explain to them that not all Americans thought it was a good idea or a "done deal" or ethical ..just some ..like GORG and their friends
2 ex east Germans ( Osties ) that I know said "why are so many westerners and especially Americans prepared to accept this level of spying from private companies ..when so many of us died trying to escape our countries when our governments tried to know in the same way what we did who we read and what we said..they must be insane ..this to us is the new stasi..same as the old stasi ..but with a smiley face ..and advertising..do the westerners give away their privacy and their freedom from the spy over their shoulder so cheaply ..we know the price of freedom from the eyes of those who would be our masters we paid that price with our blood slowly dripping onto the sand of the zone between the old east and what we thought was the free west ..now you tell us that we will be spied upon and our children will be spied upon each time they use this wonderfull thing the internets that was supposed to make us all citizens of the world ..all equal ..all of us could read and learn and explore and say what we wished ..without fear ..and now a man comes and he says ...on TV ..unafraid ...those who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear ..we are afraid ..because we know his type ...of old .and many of us have perished ..trying to escape from his sort ..trying to get from the darkness to the light .. we thought we had arrived to the light ..and that it had driven away the darkness even in our old country ..and that our children and their children would grow up not having to fear what they said ..or what they read ..or who they talked to ..and now we are afraid of this man and what he stands for ..and his smiling company ..and we will fight ..and we will insist that out governments fight this ..because we have seen what happens when the big people say they know what is best for the small people ..not being spied upon is precious ..they are crazy to say it is OK just for the business of Google..or any company ..
it is wrong" ..
A little (translated ) quote from some friends of mine ..who the first time ( and many other times ) I met them was when the wall was still up ..and I was visiting ..the other side of the wall ..and we always had to wonder who was listening that we didn't know about ..very like GORG not telling you they are tracking the moment that you land on search or youtube are served something via double click or analytics etc ..
Those of us who have been there ..do not want any part of spying on where we go, what we do , who we talk to, what we read, and where we look ..online or off ..not by our governments..and certainly not by Mr Schmidt nor any other company that claims they need to do this in order to serve us better ..it always begins as "it's for your own good" ..
If it turns out to be a success, it'll be around for a long time. In other words, the market will decide.
Not here ..it's judges and the commissioners and the elected representatives of the people of each state acting in concert ..and they already declared opt in by default illegal ..and also the holding of data by private companies ( or nasdaq quoted such as GORG ) relating to European citizens without allowing them the ability to see and correct /or remove and delete all such data..
Like it or not ..that's the law ..where over 300,000,000 ( that is 300 million ) people live ..and unless gorg want to "kiss off operating" and displaying it's wares to the EU and it's citizens it will have to rethink this ..
BTW ..offences under the EU data protection acts not only carry the potential for fines that can make even GORG wince and maybe seem less attractive to it's shareholders ..but said offences if proven also carry jail time .. up to 5 years per offence if convicted..
And as soon as the noise has died down from the Copenhagen talks our legislators and commissioners will be back at their desks and reading their emails and snail mail and voice mail ..from myself and many many others ..
And in the new year after the festivities are over ..we will learn if it is a fait accompli ..everywhere ..n'est-ce pas ( wont we ..literal translation "isn't it") ..mon cher S_J.
If Google is going to personalize all of its search results, what's the point of trying to check your rankings by viewing search results through a proxy? Whatever rankings you see won't be the rankings that John across the street and Jane next door are seeing. So why jump through hoops to get results that don't reflect reality?
because it's still the "benchmark" of where your site is without the personalized factor? obviously individual results will vary, but it will still tell you a lot about if you're going the right way surely?
much like at the moment, everyone sees different things anyway due to geo location, but the de-personalized is the "standard" ?
any idea is better than no idea IMO, even if some of the time you dont appear to viewers, some of the time you will.
any idea is better than no idea IMO
I'll say it again, install Opera, to disable cookies go to:
Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Cookies > Check "Never Accept Cookies"
Use a different browswer for those sites where you have to use cookies. Use ccleaner on a very regular basis, I tend to use it when I finish most days however once a week would suffice for most people.
They're both free therefore try them out and experience a new method of working, you may be quite surprised.
